‘An essence characterizes a substance or a form, in the sense of the Forms or Ideas in Platonic idealism. It is permanent, unalterable, and eternal; and present in every possible world. Classical humanism has an essentialist conception of the human being, which means that it believes in an eternal and unchangeable human nature. This viewpoint has been criticized by Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre, and many modern and existential thinkers.’
it puts the universal cart before the universal horse
no, you’re right, it’s meant to recall the sort of sneering i detect behind your “God is too quick for philosophy” and “Nietzsche is a chimp” threads …
2 things - 1) ‘essence’ as you define it is unobservable, giving people the right to doubt its existence, and 2) we seem to live in a universe of change - nothing stays the same - and so an unchanging, permanent fixture imbedded in everything seems unlikely.
That’s not to say I don’t believe in essences myself, but I’d go with a different definition: that which things ultimately are.
I will at this point, point out the futility of identifying the first case of a circular cause and consequence, in the form of the horse and cart causality dilemma commonly stated as:
Which came first, horse that can’t come without cart, or cart that can’t come without horse?
You’re welcome to point that out - but it doesn’t have much bearing on anything - since cart before horse is just a manner of speaking, and essence and existence are no more parts of a circular cause and consequence than sculpture and sculptor. Essence is abstraction - it is preceded by what exists.
Here’s how you defined essence: “'An essence characterizes a substance or a form, in the sense of the Forms or Ideas in Platonic idealism. It is permanent, unalterable, and eternal;”
For me, there is nothing necessarily permanent, unalterable, or eternal about essences. There can be such a thing as a tree-as-it-ultimately-is without it being permanent, unalterable, or eternal.